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Osaka Mayor Hirofumi Yoshimura has vowed to snap his metropolis’s six-decade sister-city relationship with San Francisco in protest in opposition to the US metropolis accepting a statue of “consolation girls” as public property.
“Consolation girls”, a euphemism for some 200,000 ladies and younger girls who have been coerced, kidnapped, bought or captured to be sexually exploited in Japan’s army brothels earlier than and through World Struggle II, is a taboo time period for a lot of in Japan. And these folks have been attempting to comb the difficulty underneath the carpet.
The statue in San Francisco options three girls－a Chinese language, a Korean and a Filipina－with the 2 phrases, “intercourse slaves” inscribed on a plaque. Yoshimura has written a number of letters to his San Francisco counterpart Edwin Lee this yr, saying some historians do not acknowledge the historic info about “consolation girls”.
Ikuhiko Hata is a kind of historians. In an interview with Yasuo Naito, editor in chief of Japan Ahead, Sankei Shimbun’s English-language web site, Hata mentioned the Republic of Korea makes use of the “historical past conflict” as a weapon and ladies weren’t kidnapped to be sexually exploited. He mentioned that his analysis exhibits the ladies who labored within the “consolation stations” weren’t “intercourse slaves” and didn’t dwell underneath the merciless situations.
Hata additionally mentioned the wartime newspapers in Seoul carried ads for recruiting “consolation girls”, and the recruiters weren’t Japanese however Koreans. And he claims that almost all of “consolation girls” in Japan and Korea have been skilled prostitutes. The “consolation girls” earned 300 yen ($2.7 now) each month, he mentioned, whereas Japanese troopers have been paid on common 10 yen.
In 1991, some Japanese legal professionals mentioned “consolation girls” have been “intercourse slaves” and took the difficulty to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Hata blamed some Japanese media retailers such because the Asahi Shimbun for spreading “pretend information” about “consolation girls” with the assistance of the Japanese legal professionals, which was then drummed up right into a worldwide problem.
In Hata’s phrases, these girls who endured a half century of humiliation and trauma, and but had the braveness to talk up, and people activists who helped dig out the reality and struggled to get the “consolation girls” justice and respect have been mendacity for private or political causes.
If the “findings” of historians equivalent to Hata are true, Tokyo mustn’t have signed an settlement with Seoul in 2015 to apologize to and compensate Korean “consolation girls”.
With the settlement, Japan wished to bury the difficulty.
The “consolation girls” problem, nonetheless, isn’t a “dispute” between Japan and the ROK alone. Jan Ruff-O’Herne, a Dutch Australian, was taken from an Indonesian prisoner-of-war camp the place she was residing along with her household throughout Japanese occupation. Ruff-O’Herne fought disgrace to talk up and have become an advocate for girls’s rights.
When Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the Philippines in January, surviving Filipina “consolation girls” requested for a proper apology and compensation from Japan for the atrocities they suffered by the hands of Japanese troopers throughout occupation.
Former US congressman Mike Honda took the statue in San Francisco as a bodily illustration of one thing that occurred up to now that must be discovered about to stop violence in opposition to girls and finish human trafficking.
However the Japanese authorities refuses to look into the nation’s darkish previous. After the ROK parliament designated Aug 14 as a day to commemorate Korean “consolation girls”, Japan criticized the transfer, saying it violated the spirit of the 2015 settlement. On Aug 14, 1991, Kim Hak-soon, a surviving “consolation girl”, turned the primary to discuss her ordeal. Tons of of others adopted her.
Japan considers any event to pay respects to the “consolation girls” in different elements of the world as a shame to itself. But it surely permits the nation’s right-wingers to demean the now aged survivors and those that died carrying the Japanese insult that “consolation girls” have been nothing greater than skilled prostitutes.
Japan’s angle makes the 2015 settlement extra like hush cash for the ROK than a honest apology for exploiting harmless girls.
The creator is China Day by day Tokyo bureau chief. caihong@chinadaily.com.cn
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